The American Diaspora

I've been neglecting my blogging responsibilities. There is just so much to do here! By the time I make it home I'm exhausted.

One thing taking up a bunch of my time is renovating the apartment I'm in. One of the couples here in Kolsass is interested in renting it when I'm out of the picture. The catch is that this apartment has been used by Erich and Paula as storage for the last 10 or so years. Which means my living area has become a battle zone. Erich haphazardly carting things off to the workshop to be cut up for firewood on one side, and Paula desperately trying to find hiding place for them on the other. And me and my nice quiet apartment caught in the middle.

It's not that bad actually. It gives me something to do during the day and keeps a modest amount of coin in my pocket.

But back to my title...

Erich, Paula and I went to Innsbruck yesterday to meet with the Austro-American Society. It's a group of Americans, Austrian students studying English and their assorted hangers-on who, among other things, get together twice a month to have dinner. It was quite interesting to meet so many Americans that has chosen the life of an ex-pat. Some of them had gotten teaching positions here and then gotten married, some studied here and some came for vacation and just never bothered leaving again.

It was great to talk to these people about how extended time abroad influences their views of their homeland and what prompted them to jump ship to begin with. I'm going to try, as much as possible, to stay out of politics in this blog, but many seemed to have become quite critical of American policies concerning security and surveillance as well as the common conception of personal freedom.

Now we didn't just sit around and critique American culture for two hours.  There were many funny and absurd stories shared that we as long-term foreigners could all appreciate (anyone who has 'vermisst' their bus can relate).

Which leads me to why I must now take my leave. A very nice foreign exchange student from New Orleans has invited me to celebrate her birthday with her and Innsbruck crowd, which means I have a bus to catch.